If more Christians were eating meals with non-believers, or with believers they didn’t always agree with, the Internet might look nothing like it does. We often replace face-to-face conversations with insensitive, irresponsible use of social media. The toughest discussions are the ones that require slowing down, pulling up a chair and pouring a drink together, because the words we type or affirm from a distance would so rarely come through our lips sitting inches away from another person, looking directly into their eyes.

“I like your Christ,” said Mahatma Gahndi, “but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

There’s a billboard outside the city limits where I live. The canvas is white and in large black letters, it reads, “The fool has said in his heart there is no God.” Nothing else. No relational investment and no mention of God’s immeasurable grace—just Scripture used to insult non-believers.

Church, the world is watching us. They see the articles we float around the Internet, they read our billboards and bumper stickers, and for many outside of the Body, they feel one thing with crushing weight: judgment. There is no invitation in condemnation and no love in passive-aggressive battles fought along the lines of a newsfeed.

We were never commissioned to demand that secular culture reflect biblical principles. We were commissioned to reflect biblical principles in the middle of secular culture, pointing to God’s redemptive story.

For many, the legacy being written does not point to Jesus. If the world will know we are His disciples by our love, but Christians are instead characterized by judgment, we will not be known as disciples of Christ but as hypocrites, much like the Pharisees that came before.

The values of our culture are often in conflict with the values of our faith, but this isn’t new. Many practices of the ancient world would be considered wholly unacceptable by society today. We are neither the first to live in an environment that challenges our beliefs, nor are we the first to disagree on theology.

However, we are the first with a hot and ready platform for serving quick, permanently recorded indictments, with minimal responsibility over what happens next. These instant splices are not used to reach the lost. They are only used to reinforce religious persons’ sense that they have chosen the “right” team and that their people agree with them.

When Paul addresses important issues related to sexuality in his letters to the Corinthians, he is speaking to the Church and seems unconcerned with society as a whole:

“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral … In that case you would have to leave this world … what business is it of mine to judge those outside the Church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. ‘Expel the wicked person from among you’” (1 Corinthians 5:9. 12-13).

We were never commissioned to demand that secular culture reflect biblical principles. We were commissioned to reflect biblical principles in the middle of secular culture, pointing to God’s redemptive story.

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